Pondering over our tribulations

James Bond: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The world of media has been full of flash, bang, and pizzazz ever since color TV, slick editing, and digital music started finding its way into the hands of filmmakers with a penchant for flamboyance. Sometimes, as an observer of film, I find myself automatically putting myself on guard when I watch big budget flicks. Maybe it’s because I’m one of those peculiar “Sundance” creepers who values simplicity and efficiency over pyrotechnics and car chases. That’s possibly a reason why James Bond films don’t really entertain me much. I find the idea of a globetrotting, invincible, hyper-masculine super spy to be a little too farfetched to engage seriously. You Only Live Twice was yet another Bond movie that tried to make a story out of the prominent issues that were shaping the social landscape of the mid 60’s. Unfortunately, the movie favored high speeds, slick thingamajigs, submissive and sparsely clad Japanese spy girls, and a smattering of improbable pyrotechnic scenarios over giving more prominence to dainty details like an INTERESTING PLOT.

You Only Live Twice was a movie that was made and released during a time where the global arena of politics was experiencing historic ripples that would later make it to the textbooks of our times. The world was experiencing the frantic excitement of two superpowers in the world vying to explore the vast unknown of space that had eluded mankind for millennia. The war on Vietnam was being fought over in the tropics of Southeast Asia and the world had new problems to face while having no new answers to solve them with. I feel that the James Bond franchise would have been the ideal medication for moviegoers who wanted entertainment that could give them an action packed ride full of thrills, lust, and testosterone while being played out in a reality where the issues of the real world were diluted and made easier to digest.

In the movie, James Bond, played by that maverick of the silver screen Sean Connery, is dispatched to crack down on the mysterious disappearances of American spacecraft orbiting the earth. Confusion and puzzlement follow as Soviet spacecraft start disappearing, and neither the Soviets nor Americans claim any responsibility for the vanishing space shuttles. As Bond cracks down on the mystery, a much more sinister plan by a much more ominous source is revealed. The SPECTRE organization, a secret superpower with greater technological sophistication than the Americans or Russians, led by its diabolical leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is revealed to be the shuttle-nappers. Without any rational reason, SPECTRE plans to create complete chaos between the super powers, and it seemed like Ernst Stavro Blofeld had his popcorn and kitty delights ready to enjoy the pandemonium that ensued. But that was only until 007 had something to say about it.

This is what evil looks like.

Predictably, the movie ends with Sean Connery vanquishing all the evil in the world and proceeding to reward himself by indulging in the carnal pleasures only known to those who have enjoyed the personal company of beautiful female Japanese super spies. Roger Ebert got it spot on when he said the movie was “top-heavy with gadgets but weak on plotting and getting everything to work at the same time.” Something that surely didn’t work with You Only Live Twice might have been the fact that they probably failed to tickle the funnybones of modern day feminists. The overt sexism in the movie goes to show how 40 years can make things of the past seem extremely out of place today. Not only do the Bond women have to look, act, talk, and breathe sex, lust, and seduction, they also have to do typical female things like overcome the tough volcanic terrains of coastal Japan wearing nothing but a bikini. While Bond and the rest of the ballsy boys of his ninja team would thrash around Blofeld’s volcanic hideaway in hardy bodysuits, the traditional sacramental female offering to James Bond would avoid bullets and other harmful projectiles by the divine grace of her smooth skin and skimpy two-piece swimsuit.

The contrast in the portrayal of women today, compared to the days of Sean Connery’s adventures, should make us feel fortunate that we live in a time of greater sophistication and humanity. The filmmaker displaced the real world conflict between the cold war superpowers and shifted it to an unusual looking psychopath in a Nehru suit and an undisclosed Asian country that could only be personified by China. While I felt that issues such as the complicated political climate of the time should have given more prominence in the storyline, the experience and expertise of the filmmaker clearly told him that juicy cleavage shots, together with a bunch of space age gadgetry making things go “bang!” would get the audience into a frenzy of action packed delight faster than you could say “stirred, not shaken.” Unfortunately, that’s what James Bond was and still is; a celluloid dreamworld where reality is thrust to the background while sex, guns, and masculinity blows you away.

He should be used for an Axe ad!

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2 Responses

I completely agree, the plot was flat out garbage. It was full of holes and I had to force myself to keep focused. The technology was smeared all over the film like frosting on a baked potato; it sounds good but doesn’t come off right once tasted. Also, the space-age technology was just ridiculous like the cuttlefish-esque spaceship and the rocket pistols blowing the lab apart. Curse you 60s, once you banquished McCarthyism it was all downhill from there.

I was not particularly impressed with this film either. To me, it seemed like Bond was actually unnecessary in his own film. I mean, he was the main character and he did all the talking to people, but it seemed like Tiger and his Ninja team would have had things under control in terms of the space shuttle eating problem. It seemed like just an attempt to build off of the Bond name rather than have him solve the problem or do anything that constructive. To be fair, he did fly a helicopter and blow up the other ones, but this wasn’t incorporated all that well.